AustLit

'Serge Liberman, who died in December 2017, was an important and highly distinctive Australian ethnic writer. His short stories, including the posthumously published The Storyteller, conduct what is in effect a conversation between two worlds: that of post-Enlightenment rationality, on the one hand, and that of the magical, the folkloric, the Hassidic, imagination of the shtetl, on the other. Liberman’s profound tragic sense does not preclude the possibility of human redemption through empathy, compassion and imaginative inspiration.'  (Publication abstract)

'Stepladder to Hindsight is about a fascinating man who has reached a turning point in his life and looks back. In this work, renowned academic and life-writer Richard Freadman turns the pen on himself, producing an immensely compelling narrative of his life.   Elegant and richly self-aware, Stepladder to Hindsight gives us unbridled access to a complex life and a unique mind. Within these pages you will find humour and tragedy, peppered with astute literary commentary and philosophical musings. This 'almost memoir' is fiercely intelligent and so addictively personal that it is hard to put down.   What the critics said: "...an eloquent book, a unique combination of compelling storytelling, searching reflection, with an extraordinary range of mood and style - an original take on the art of life writing." - Arnold Zable  ' (Publication summary)

'One of my first sightings of Laurie was in a framed photo in the old Eagle Bar at La Trobe University. Entitled ‘The Coach,’ the photo featured a young and rather fit-looking Captain Coach addressing his players at the quarter or three-quarter time break. The players, it has to be said, look completely uninterested in proceedings; but according to the picture’s caption Laurie is pulling out all the rhetorical stops. The caption reads:

Senior Lecturer in English Laurie Clancy urges on the football team in mid-1969 with accounts of existentialism and the thinking of Kierkegarrd.'

(Author's introduction)

'A master of melancholic wit, Laurie Clancy was one of Australia's most versatile short story writers. If realism was his artistic staple, he had a genius for farce and the mock-heroic, and was remarkably adept at magic realism, postmodern experimentation and the fiction of ideas. Equally at home in the pub, the seminar room, literary journals and the columns of daily newspapers, Clancy was a wickedly astute but compassionate and ultimately good-humoured guide to the vagaries of the human heart, both at home and abroad. This posthumous selection shows him in his pomp as a practitioner of fiction's shorter forms.' (Publication summary)

'Jews have been in Australia since the First Fleet. They have come from many lands; some in relative comfort, others in utter destitution. Their stories of survival, arrival, adaptation and participation constitute one of multicultural Australia's great ethnic narratives. Australian Jews have written about three hundred book-length autobiographies. Richard Freadman's remarkable This Crazy Thing a Life: Australian Jewish Autobiography is the first ever comprehensive study of this large, varied and fascinating body of work.

The autobiographies range from humble self-published monographs to acclaimed narratives by professional writers like Lily Brett, Jacob Rosenberg and Arnold Zable. Freadman offers superbly nuanced readings of major works. He also surveys the field as a whole, tracing demographic trends, recurrent themes, the impact of the Holocaust, and issues of gender, genre, testimony, truth-telling and literary value. There are accessible discussions of humanist and postmodern approaches to Holocaust memoir, migrant narrative and ethnic minority writing, together with background information about Judaism and the Australian Jewish diaspora. The final section of the book is an anthology of short excerpts featuring both renowned and lesser-known writers.

Written for a general audience, this rich and impassioned book makes an important contribution to our understanding of Australian Jewish lives, and of Australian lives more generally.' -- Cover blurb.